Published on SalemReporter.com
Nearly a year after Senator Deb Patterson’s SB 488 became law, Marion and Polk County families are still dealing with the fallout. As the chief sponsor of the bill, Patterson pushed through new emissions mandates that made continued operation of the Brooks waste facility impossible — and she did so without a plan for what would replace it. The result has been lost jobs, higher costs, and thousands of tons of local waste now trucked to distant landfills already near capacity. Now, leachate runoff from those landfills—containing toxic ‘forever chemicals’—is being released into the Willamette River, threatening both public health and Oregon’s fish populations. What Patterson calls ‘progress’ has become a pollution problem for the people she represents. Angela Plowhead believes Oregon can protect clean air *and* clean water — but that takes leaders who plan ahead and put people first, not politics.
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